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To: discostu
Well for one thing there's the willful violation of the law, right or wrong laws are the written rules of our society and willful violation of them shows a disrepect for our society and weakens the ties of society by helping to create a society full of secrets and distrust. Then there's the black market economy that feeds it, on the profit chain of drugs there is always a murderer eventually, there aren't good people involved in the black market and knowingly creating a living for bad people is clearly not moral behavior. Now if marijauna were legal then responsible non-addictive non-destructive use of them wouldn't be immoral behavior. IMHO anyway.

So you believe that our laws determine what is moral? I don't believe that, and I don't think Bennett does either. Incidentally, in my example, I talked about someone who was growing and smoking their own marijuana - no black market economy, profit chains, or anything like that was implied and no bad people (unless you consider the smoker himself) prosper. Take people who grow their own medicinal marijuana in California. They are legal under state law, but illegal under federal law. Do you consider them when using marijuana in a "responsible non-addictive non-destructive" way immoral or not? I would hope that all of our own issues about morality are stronger than what the laws at any given time happen to be. Slavery was legal at one time, but I do not believe that it was ever moral.
278 posted on 05/02/2003 3:38:41 PM PDT by Stone Mountain
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To: Stone Mountain
Yes and no. I think morality is superior to the laws and it is our duty as a society to make laws moral and also to understand which parts of morality are best enforced without laws (I'm a big proponent of bringing back shame and ridicule as a punishment and getting rid of lots of laws for things that should be handled more informally). But, all that being said laws are important to the health of a society and willful disregard for laws is bad because it quickly translates to willful disregard for our less formal societal rules (the ones we should be enforcing with shame and ridicule). IMHO drug laws are stupid and should go away, this isn't the kind of thing best handled by laws it's best handled by shame and ridicule; but it's the law of the land and the vast percentage of America that disregards those laws help contribute to a general lawlessness and a society that doesn't respect the rules or each other (pot kettle confession, I've never met a speed limit I couldn't blow away).

Your example would seem to be a closed loop, but it really isn't. Where did he get those seeds? What happens when he runs out? What happens when he has too much? Any paraphenalia? There aren't many closed loops in the world.

While it is against the law it is immoral to do drugs. We must also ask whether risking long term imprisonment for "fun" can truly be considered non-addictive non-destructive behavior. Now the root of the immorality is that we've gone out of control with idiotic nanny state laws, but nobody is putting much effort into controlling that particular set of immoral behavior.
286 posted on 05/02/2003 3:51:30 PM PDT by discostu (A cow don't make ham)
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